Senate Republicans today blocked a proposal to eliminate tax breaks for the nation's biggest oil companies and tax their windfall profits, rejecting Democratic claims that the measure would help ease consumer anger over $4-a-gallon gasoline.
. . .
The Senate fell nine votes short of the 60 votes required to proceed to debate on the measure, which would have wiped out $17 billion in tax breaks over 10 years and created a new levy on "unreasonable" profits collected by the five largest U.S. oil companies.
The Post didn't use the word "filibuster" once. Not once. Why not?
Thanks for your continuing commitment to quality reporting.
I'm curious why the word "filibuster" does not appear in your article "Senate GOP Blocks Oil Tax Proposal," at least as of 3:24 this afternoon. The Republicans hung that word around Democrats' necks for years, but I haven't seen it much during this session.
Quite graciously, Mr. Mufson replied:
Fair question. We've debated this too.
I think that if the Democratic leadership actually forced Republicans to filibuster by talking endlessly on the floor we would use the term more often. What happens lately is that Republicans stop cloture motions and the bills are withdrawn without any long drawn out affair one usually associates with the word filibuster.
Regards,
Steve Mufson
That shocked me, but I can understand where the reporters are coming from. But that begs the question, what the heck are the Democrats doing? Why aren't they keeping the floor? Where is Reid in all of this, and why isn't he pushing the Republicans against the wall? If we want to get to 60 in the Senate this November, it wouldn't hurt Democratic challengers to have some extra mettle when they call the Republicans "obstructionist."
Where the heck is the leadership in the Senate?
And if they can't get it right now, how are they going to get it right when we have the trifecta?
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